Self-Portrait With Sunnies

Hrmm... Another set of self-portraits. I hope that people won't think I'm self-obsessed or something. It's just that it's quite hard to find a model who would sit there and experiment with random lighting ideas that I come up with at 3am in the morning. I hope this set of self-portraits isn't too bad! The second photo was really just an accident. I positioned myself too far to the camera left. But because of this accident I have now realised that "half-portraits" can be quite interesting too!

The retouching styles of the two are different in the level of contrast. Which retouch do you like more?

The more observant people may ask what the hell did I do to make that very prominent looking black flash gun look like just a flash of light (it seems to be floating in mid-air!). I'll keep that as a secret =)

Strobist: SB600 as backlight from behind the subject. A reflector placed in front of the subject and direct flash from the camera were used to fill in the face.

Starry Night

Just in time!

So why stars? Because it is my birthday! And not just simply a birthday (because i normally don't make a huge fuss about my birthdays), but it is my star birthday! A star birthday occurs when the day of your birthday is the same as your age. So my birthday is on the 23rd and I turned 23 today! Only happens once in a lifetime in case you haven't noticed. So here's my starry night. You may ask if the stars were Photoshopped on. The answer is no. The effect was created simply by holding a piece of cardboard with a cutout of a star right in front of the lens, like a filter. As a result, the usual, regular circular/polygonal shapes become the shape of the cutout. Very simple and an age old technique that can easily be overused.

Star

Why a star? It's not a very nice star I've got to admit. But you will know why soon!

Inspired By Helvetica

Haven't posted for a long time! Haven't taken any new photos and I've been too lazy to upload the second part of my Taiwan series. Here's what I've been doing for the past two days.

Update: Hrmm.... I searched for "Helvetica wallpapers" on Google Images and the first page comes up with one that's 90% like mine... It seems like I copied it!!! Coincidence or did I psychically copy it? Damn it feels creepy and guilty...